insert animated .gif?

[jandbj]

I need an image to fade in at the end of my commercial. I'm very new (ok, first job)...

Couldn't figure out how to fade it in so I'm trying to insert an animated .gif file, but the animation doesn't work.

Help!

[borate]

I need an image to fade in at the end of my commercial. I'm very new (ok, first job)...

Couldn't figure out how to fade it in so I'm trying to insert an animated .gif file, but the animation doesn't work.

 

No can do UNLESS you break the animation down into its component frames, with a utility designed for that.

One FREE route is http://irfanview.com - the world's most popular image handler...

 

Load the GIF, then click the OPTIONS menu|EXTRACT ALL FRAMES. Paste those frames into Videopad

and make each approximately 10 frames in duration. That will reconstruct the animation.

 

As for fading out, try the right-click menu. Or click on a clip's little star in the timeline, which will bring up

the effects window. Set OPACITY keyframes. They are created by clicking the green + or by dragging the

blue horizontal (opacity level) line that you see in the box to the right.

[Nationalsolo]

HI

 

Animated gif files won't work with VP but you can add gif files to the timeline. So, if you have your gif files (extracted as Borate mentions,) simply add them one after another (in order) to the end of the timeline. If you then switch into Storyboard mode you can alter the duration of each image - this is printed below each frame - to give the correct animation speed when you play the sequence.

 

By fade-in you probably mean a crossfade (a dissolve effect.) However, a simple crossfade will be difficult to implement as it stands with the images following the last video clip.

The reason for this is that the first gif image, being part of the animation, will only be short and VP won't crossfade over more than two clips/images i.e. the last video and the first gif image and the effect can't be longer than the shortest clip/image. VP will therefore have to shorten any crossfade effect to less than 1/10 of a second which will not be of any use.

 

Now, although the Opacity method works OK with video clips, it won't actually work correctly in this particular case as, once again the effect will only work over the duration of a single image. T,he difficulty here again, is that each of your gif images is of very short duration and whilst you can set different opacity levels for each image it would not be particularly easy to do and the final effect would not look good. (Grouping a number of images together using Control+shift only places the effect on the last image.)

 

The way around this is to place the LAST video clip onto the upper video track i.e. the overlay track.

 

So,.... if you have your images on the sequence line following your video clip, simply grab the clip and drag it up to the overlay track. The images will stay put.

Now grab the first gif image and drag it to the left underneath the video clip. (So the clip is overlapping.) All the other images should follow as a block. If they don't then use Control+Shift to select them all. (or drag them all individually )

Note that the length of your fade-in will be the the duration represented by the overlap at 10 images/second (or whatever you have set)

At this moment the video clip will play over the gif images.

 

Now,...Right click the video clip on the upper track and select "Current Effects Properties" from the list hat comes up.

Click "Add Effect" in the next window and select "Opacity" from the list.

With the red cursor line for the clip preview positioned to the extreme left, drag the Opacity slider to 100%.

Click the Green cross to fix the value (keyframe 1) A small orange square will appear on the horizontal blue line in the box

Now slide the red cursor line along the box to a point very close to the end of the clip. It should be at the point where your images start but as you can't see these you will have to guess...you can alter it later. The orange square will turn green showing it has registered.

Click the Green cross again to set a second keyframe..(Keyframe 2)

Now drag the cursor line along to the end of the clip.

Drag the Opacity slider left to 0%. The blue line will slant down now to the bottom of the box from the (now) green marker

If you now slide the red curser line back to the left and play the clip you should see it fade out just before the end.

Click the "Close button", wait for the changes to register and play the end of the sequence line now.

You should see the video dissolve onto the image section.

If it isn't quite right you can go back to the effects screen and move the second Keyframe marker left or right to a more suitable place, or you can drag the animation images en masse to a slightly different starting point.

 

Nat